‘Succession’ director Mark Mylod reveals line cut from Roman’s final scene

Kieran Culkin’s final scene on “Succession” almost perfectly mirrored his first appearance.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Emmy-nominated “Succession” director Mark Mylod revealed that the Roman actor’s last line of dialogue on the HBO drama was supposed to be, “What up, motherfucker?” The foul-mouthed greeting is how audiences were first introduced to Roman in the “Succession” pilot when he walked into a conference room and offered the same variation of hello.

“I imagine that Jesse’s intention there was to show the cyclical nature of Roman’s journey,” said Mylod, who directed the “Succession” finale but was nominated for the show’s third episode, “Connor’s Wedding,” which featured the death of Logan Roy (Emmy nominee Brian Cox). “That for all that illusion of evolution, on some level those four seasons over which we followed Roman was some kind of fever dream, and he finds himself right back where he started.”

That Roman’s final scene had been tweaked is something the “Succession” team has discussed before. In an interview with Gold Derby, “Succession” editor Ken Eluto, an Emmy nominee for the finale, explained there was some debate about Roman’s last moment. 

“I wasn’t sure we needed the scene at all,” Eluto said of the scene, which featured Roman going to a bar and ordering a martini, a drink closely associated with Gerri (Emmy nominee J. Smith-Cameron), whose relationship with Roman finally fractured beyond repair in the final season. Eluto said after some discussions with creator Jesse Armstrong and Mylod, he re-edited the scene without dialogue.. “I went back to that scene and I thought, ‘Well, maybe we just take out the dialogue, just have him have the drink and have those looks on his face, which worked well,” Eluto explained.

In an interview published by HBO after the finale, Armstrong explained Roman’s fate as that he “ends up exactly where he started. He is that guy still and he maybe could have easily been a playboy jerk with some slightly nasty instincts and some quite funny jokes. He could have stayed in a bar being that guy, and this has been a bit of a detour in his life, I’d say.”

Culkin, in a separate interview with Variety, suggested his take on Roman’s future was a bit more mixed.

“People inevitably do grow when they go through experiences like this. I think he has evolved as a person. I don’t think he’s gained nothing from this,” Culkin said. “I think there’s something he must have taken away from it, whether or not that’s for better or for worse.”

“Succession” received 27 Emmy nominations this year for its final season and is expected to win multiple awards, including Best Drama Series, Best Drama Directing for Mylod, and Best Drama Actor for Culkin according to the Gold Derby odds.

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